It turns out the demand for surplus Army 1911 handguns outstrips supply (by a lot)

Pistols like this 1970s-era 1911 handgun could soon be available to private purchasers as part of 8,000 surplus guns being sold through the Civilian Marksmanship Program. (Photo: U.S. Archives)

According to a new government report, there has been double the demand for surplus M1911 .45 caliber pistols released for civilian sales from the Army, and the same program received 100,000 more requests for surplus M1 Garand .30 caliber rifles.

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A .45-Caliber round is layed out next to a 9 mm round. The Civilian Marksmanship Program is selling off 8,000 surplus 1911 .45 caliber pistols. Marines still use a much-upgraded version of the venerable weapon which has seen action in all of America's major wars since its adopting more than a century ago.

Those that have sold or will sell through the CMP program range in price from “service grade” for $1,050, “field grade” for $950 and “rack grade” for $850, according to the report.

As of December, CMP reported that it had sold 632 service grade 1911s, generating $663,600 in revenue.

The CMP officials determined that 145 of the 8,000 they received were unsellable. So, as of December, 7,223 surplus 1911 handguns remained in the initial batch transferred from the Army. GAO estimated that could provide the program with nearly $8 million once they’re all sold.

CMP expects to have processed those sales by this spring.

The primary item that CMP has sold for nearly two decades has been the M1 Garand. From 2008 to 2017, it sold 304,233 rifles, the vast majority of those being the M1.

The average sale price was $650. And 279,032 of those were from the Army.

Two-thirds of those were M1s. But the other third included the following:

M82 Kimber rifle – 5,014

Mosin Nagant M44 Carbine – 3,397

M12 Mauser rifle – 675

M52 rifle – 573

M513T Remington – 570

M40X1/M40 rifle – 503

M14 National Match rifle – 486

M1917 Enfield rifle – 443

M1903 rifle – 183

M13 rifle – 182

Mossberg M144 rifle – 99

While there is not a detailed breakdown in the report of what kinds of rifles are still in the inventory, it did note that 148,714 sellable surplus rifles remain in stock. That surplus — along with the anticipated future pistol sales — could bring in nearly $105 million to CMP, according to the report.

And early last year, the CMP received 100,000 M1s from stocks in the Philippines and Turkey, according to the report.

Todd South is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War. He has written about crime, courts, government and military issues for multiple publications for more than a decade. In 2014, he was named a Pulitzer finalist for local reporting on a project he co-wrote about witness problems in gang criminal cases. Todd covers ground combat for Military Times.